After lake Titicaca we took a ten hour bus ride to Arequipa Peru. Arequipenans say that their city is a separate country inside of Peru. They even sell Arequipa Passports as a novelty item. They say this because the food, culture, and apparently political ideals are all very unique and different from the rest of the country. They call it the “White City”, after the white volcanic stone that was used to build the old buildings circling the main plaza of the city (A plaza is just basically a park in the middle of town, usually with a fountain that isn’t working, surrounded by shoe shiners who are). Around the city there are three volcanoes, which give the town an impressive backdrop.
Not too far from town is one of the main sights, the Colca Canyon. This canyon is in the Andean mountain range and about twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. Though not as wide, it is very impressive, especially when you’re at the base looking up. (*For the record all of our facts are based off of memory and rough translations, but fact checking’s for suckers, so just take our word on everything.) We took a two day hike to the bottom, around and up the canyon in order to see it all, and we definitely saw it. The first day we walked down the canyon trail about a million meters to the bottom, and then waded through the river to the other side. It had just started raining however, so the guides were frantically trying to get everyone across before there was a flash flood. Luckily no one
we knew died, and we knew everyone.
As a side note flooding has been a big problem in Peru lately. It’s currently their rainy season, and this one has been particularly bad. 60 bridges from Cuzco to Lima have been destroyed or damaged beyond use by the flooding so far. Back to the Colca story though, we walked 21 miles down and around the canyon that first day. At the end of it there was a natural hot springs swimming pool, which helped the old legs get ready for the next day, which was just getting up at 4:30 am and walking straight up the canyon. The guide said that the average time to the top was 3 hours, so Daniel and I made it a competition with the other unaware hikers and finished in a little under 2 hours, but by the end of it we regretted “winning” because we were dead tired. Another random fact about the Colca Canyon is that the second largest bird in the world lives there, the Condor. The Condor is similar to a vulture that you’d see in Oregon but different because…I have no clue, they look very similar. But they are still cool to see. The Albatross is the #1 largest flying bird in the world in case you were wondering. Peruvians like saying though that the Condor is the largest bird that can fly over 8,000 meters high; but that’s not quite fair to the Albatross because he doesn’t have the Andes to fly over in Australia, all they have over there is guys punching kangaroos.
Earlier I said that the city was nicknamed the “White City” because of its stones. However, one local guy told us that the name originally came from the fact that there only used to be Spaniards (White people) living in the city. Apparently it used to be a pretty segregated place, eventually that changed but the nickname stuck. The moral of the story is: If you’re going to nickname your city something segregationally/racist make sure you have a back-up plan for when people who aren’t awful question it.
Arequipa was a lovely city though, there were police officers and security guards everywhere, which is one of those things that you’re not sure how to feel about. Does their presence mean that there’s threats everywhere or that you’re safe? We never felt threatened though, so apparently it’s the second one.
After Arequipa we took an 11 hour bus ride to Cusco Peru, which is the gateway to Machu Picchu, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Cusco is an old rustic looking city, that was one of our favorites so far, but there isn’t really much to do there other than book a tour to see Machu Picchu. We got a 4 day 3 night journey to it. The first day we mountain biked down a crazy mountain road that was still being used by vehicles, kinda like in Mario Kart. The company outfits everyone with full body protective gear though, with a BMX helmet, gloves, knee and shin pads, and full chest and back gear. Unfortunately though, there was 21 people on the tour with us and only 20 bags of gear. Which I didn’t find out until everyone around me was looking outfitted like a star wars clone and the guide was asking if I’d like to go down without any gear or ride down in the bus. So I just rode down in the bus, the end. I definitely rode down without any gear. Which was one of the scarier things I’ve done to be honest, because I am not a very good bicyclist, I’ve wrecked on multiple continents. Let’s just say I’m never gonna go on one of those two person bikes on a date, she better like putt-putt or something. Anyways, the group takes off down this mountain, and I try to act like I’m not scared, but I did “tengo” some “miedo”, I won’t lie. (It means “have fear”, you don’t have to google it now.) The ride turned out to be a lot of fun though, it was all down-hill for three hours. By the end it felt like our muscles had atrophied because we’d barely used em but it was a blast. It was one of the more peaceful and fun things I’ve done. The start was near glaciers and the bottom was in a tropical jungle so it was quite the fast contrast. Like I said the road was still being used by cars and trucks, but it was the windiest and worst road to drive a vehicle on that I have ever seen. There were 11 creeks going across the road (one was basically a river) and each was at the bottom of a huge U in the road. One of them they call the “Gringo Killer”, but they never tell you which one it is, but I have a feeling it’s the last one. I had about a half hour left when some other bikers passed Daniel and I. This automatically got my competitive juices flowing because we hadn’t gotten passed in 2 and a half hours, and then the guys started slowing down. So obviously I had to pass them back, but I couldn’t be rude and slow down after I passed ‘em, I had to make sure that I put some space between us so I started going the fastest I had all day, and just then the last U turn and creek came up and I went into it at a weird angle and then tried fixing it while I was in the water, but I hydroplaned and my bike decided to flip and I rolled three or four times (luckily all on concrete), Daniel did confirm that it looked cool though. I just got a few scratches, and then the guide’s pity and generosity for the next three days though, so it turned out fine.
After that we went white water rafting on a river that was at flood stage. They said usually it takes 2 hours for the trip but ours only took 1 hour 15, so needless to say we went fast, and there was tons of rapids. There were three other rafting boats with six people each and a guide at the back, luckily though Daniel and I’s raft got the main guide guy, so we hit all the big rapids. Another raft had a guy that was going on his first time as a guide and all the other guides were razzing him beforehand, and he ended up hitting a whirl pool in the middle of the river and dumping all the passengers. Before that all the guides were joking around, but then they got super serious. Unfortunately though, it was in a super rough part of the river, so they weren’t able to get picked up back in the boats for over a mile. And they were going fast and getting dunked by the rapids, I tried to grab one of their hands but they were going too fast, so the moral of the story is: have bigger hands.
The next two days after that we did a lot of hiking, we got to walk on an old stone Incan trail on the side of a cliff, which just looked like an old stone trail on the side of a cliff, but it was cool. We also did a lot of mosquito feeding, and got to go to a hot springs and zip lining. And then after more walking we got to the city of Aguas Caliente, which is a pretty cute tourist city that only exists so people can sleep there and then walk up to Machu Picchu the next morning. The gates to the path up the mountain didn’t open until 5 am, but our guide said that usually there was a really long line so we should get there by 3:30 am. Getting up at 3am is so unbelievably early that it’s kind of a novelty, plus it was for Machu Picchu so it was doable.
When we got to the gates there was no one there, not even the security guard was awake, and it was pouring outside. After 50 minutes a big group of 35 people cut us, so we ended up being #36 & #37 in line and thinking negative things about German people. So when the gates opened at 5am we were motivated to pass all of those people on the hike up. They say the hike usually takes 40 minutes to an hour, but our competitiveness to beat those people and wanting to be the first people to see Machu Picchu from the stereotypical spot pushed us to do it in 33 minutes. We were tired and sweating when we got to the top but it was worth it when it opened up and we got to see; yet another gate, and it didn’t open ‘til 7am.
Once we got inside though, it really was what I’d hoped for and more. It looks amazing, and super impressive. They say they only know 30% about it, based on other Incan civilizations. But, that it was probably partly used to look at the stars. The river that runs below the mountain of Machu Picchu translates from an old native language to mean “the Milky Way.” And they say that the cities they would put along this river would correlate to stars in the sky. There’s a building at Machu Picchu that they think was made purposely without a roof, that has two stone dishes in it, that they think they filled with water and were able to look closer at the stars with, depending on how close to the dishes they were. There’s also a temple to the sun and the moon. You could tell they were the important building cuz they were made out of boulders that fit together perfectly. They also don’t know how they made the stones into the shapes they are. The best theory is that they used river rocks that were stronger than the stone and just filed them down for a very long time. Other facts are that they only think people lived in Machu Picchu for 3 generations or about 80 years based on their cemeteries. Which is pretty crazy to think how much they accomplished with so little in such a short amount of time.
Most humans can only use 10% of their brains capacity, but our guide said that the Inca’s were able to somehow use 30% of theirs. There’s literally nothing to back this theory up, other than the fact that Machu Picchu exists. But it’s his ancestors and his job so he can say whatever he wants. Maybe all these facts are just made up by the guides cuz they have to have something to talk about, and they only actually know 30% about it, but that’s their spiel.
On another note, eating Guinea Pig is a real delicacy here. It turns out that it’s just a really expensive rat that has no taste and no meat. But there are lots of tiny bones. If this part upsets you because you used to have a pet Guinea Pig, then just imagine that we ate your pet.
We also tried Alligator Hamburgers at a random Texas BBQ restaurant that we found. Alligator is actually really good, there’s just something satisfying about eating something that can eat you.
Next on our list is going to an island city on the Amazon river in the Amazon jungle. So that should be fun.
Well that’s all for now folks.
